Smothered
Watched an interesting documentary just now in Surveying Mass Media about the Smothers Brothers' Comedy Hour. It was really the first popular show that had an edge to it; a kind of biting political and socio-cultural commentary. It started innocently enough in '67, just before all that crazy 60's stuff began to happen, 'Nam and all those assassinations and what have you. The show was put into the dreaded Sundays at 9 o'clock spot across from Bonanza. It became popular really quickly, and to the mid-American whitebread apple pie eye it was a couple of college-type young men, Tom and Dick Smothers. But as the show went on, they started shifting to the left a bit, and began incorporating the counter-culture. One really funny clip they showed was kind of a homemaker tips bit, hosted by this hippie chick. She talked the show before about how to get rid of roaches around the house, and this episode she thanked a lot of people for sending her their roaches. If you're not getting that joke, just stop reading now. Anyway, they started being more and more controversial, from their political satire to even sacrilege, all of which I thought was funny from the clips they showed. CBS was under pressure from the new Nixon administration and was looking for any excuse to cancel the show when they didn't receive a taped show on time. They canceled them for that. Afterward my professor pointed out that even today political and social commentary is scary to networks, and the more satirical shows like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and South Park are all on a cable channel. Saturday Night Live is late at night, and the Simpsons are in the early evening before primetime. The only thing you see is Family Guy which is at 9 on Sundays. The networks are still a bit scared to put anything that makes light of politics, religion or whatever in a spot where many people will see it. I thought that was really interesting.
As my first semester of college comes to a close, I gotta say that I'm a bit underwhelmed. It wasn't all that challenging, I have decent grades, I'm not stressed over anything here, and I only have three finals to take. The onIy things I'm all that worried about is my financial situation, and the fact that I've been single for almost two years now. I can easily fix the first by getting a job up here next semester, and I have a job back home that I can work at over Christmas. I honestly thought this would be hard, that it would be a wake-up call and kick my rear into gear. I probably work about as hard as I did in high school, if that. I write less papers, do less homework, but I study a bit more mostly out of sheer boredom. I was a little nervous senior year, what with my counselor telling me I'm lazy and will probably fail in college. I have a lot less respect for her now, which isn't saying much as I didn't like her in the first place.
But yeah, I'll probably be home on Thursday evening, the 13th. That's when my last final is, and then three weeks or so of even less to worry about. All I have to do is work a bit and hang around. It's gonna be sweet.
As my first semester of college comes to a close, I gotta say that I'm a bit underwhelmed. It wasn't all that challenging, I have decent grades, I'm not stressed over anything here, and I only have three finals to take. The onIy things I'm all that worried about is my financial situation, and the fact that I've been single for almost two years now. I can easily fix the first by getting a job up here next semester, and I have a job back home that I can work at over Christmas. I honestly thought this would be hard, that it would be a wake-up call and kick my rear into gear. I probably work about as hard as I did in high school, if that. I write less papers, do less homework, but I study a bit more mostly out of sheer boredom. I was a little nervous senior year, what with my counselor telling me I'm lazy and will probably fail in college. I have a lot less respect for her now, which isn't saying much as I didn't like her in the first place.
But yeah, I'll probably be home on Thursday evening, the 13th. That's when my last final is, and then three weeks or so of even less to worry about. All I have to do is work a bit and hang around. It's gonna be sweet.